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codifi ed into religious and lay traditions that were passed on through the
ages in sacred texts, by story tellers, or keepers of 'the word.' In sharp
contrast to the practitioners employed by the international development
institutions and the academic community that perpetuates the doctrines
that guide them, people interested in these communities are learning
to appreciate the signifi cance of the conservation and deepening of the
traditional knowledge and understanding of their surroundings developed
by communities on the basis of other rationalities and cosmologies that are
contributing to their well-being and the conservation of their ecosystems; in
some cases research teams are now collaborating with these communities
to expand their options with innovations based on new research consistent
with traditional approaches.
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As in many parts of the world, in Mexico there are numerous mountain
communities actively involved in efforts to escape from the dynamics of
social and economic marginality (Borrini-Feyerbend et al. 2010, Martin
et al. 2011, Tauli-Corpuz et al. 2010). National socio-economic policy and
programs of national 'integration' systematically impoverished them as
part of modernization programs that continue to proclaim international
integration and free trade as the most effective path to 'development' (Barkin
2000). In response, many communities are actively involved in resisting
programs for local and regional development, constructing alternative
projects for local advance. They are reclaiming parts of their history and
inviting others to join them in integrating the best of state-of-the-art practice
as part of an effort to strengthen their societies, to join them in forging new
structures that will promote a meaningful form of sustainability, assuring
enduring patterns of equality and an informed process of ecosystem
management for rehabilitation and conservation. In what follows we offer
several examples in which university based teams were able to interact with
these communities to strengthen their collective projects. This experience
is based upon the idea that people codify their knowledge systems in such
a way as to attempt to manage their environments and produce the goods
they need for their own well-being and for improving their conditions.
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Innovation to Maintain Tradition
In our collaborations with local communities, we are concerned with
identifying projects that contribute to promoting community solidarity and
welfare in consonance with environmental equilibria. Our contribution,
as outside researchers, is to identify untapped or ill-used resources that
can be better mobilized to promote community objectives. In some cases,
as will become obvious, we explore the signifi cance of institutions that
have atrophied or assert new values that we consider can contribute
to community objectives; two such examples are promoting gender
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